Pinto Car Club of America

i finally started the major tear down on my pinto today in high school(auto mech). i get about 2 hours a day to work on it. i plan to intall a header,intake manifold,a mild cam if i can find and afford it.I also plan to deck the head 40/1000th (any info for or against this would be helpful),port and polish the head. I will be repainting the valve cover and the air cleaner. i will also do a tune up (oil, spark plugs, tune carb).Next year i will repaint the whole car either dark blue or black. its baby blue now. ill try to keep yall updated. any tips, hints, or advise will help.
                                            thx yall

I think I read somewhere that for every 60/1000ths off the head you get 1 compression point.  Just make sure you dont get the compression to high you dont want it to start detonating on pump gas.  If you have to start running aviation fuel or a race fuel you will have to pay big money for gas.  If you think gas is expensive at the pump wait till you have to fill up on this.

I have .100 shaved off my race head and it will and does run on super unleaded.  Go with at least the .100, .040 will make little to no difference.  You will have to buy and install a adjustable cam pulley to do this even if you use the stock cam. Put in a cam with .460 lift and .280 duration, and it will run GOOD.  Unless you are going to RACE it alot with sustained high RPMs, don't bother porting it.

Im not saying that they wont run on super unleaded.  But ive seen what can happen if you run them on super unleaded.  Some of the guys i race with use it and have burnt some pistons and valves with it.  This usually only happens after they have used it for a little while.  My self if im going to spend $3.00 a gallon for pump gas why not spend another dollar a gallon and get 116 octane unical race fuel.

Porting may not be all that much help but if you can find someone who is good at it and cheap do it because you can feel the difference big time.  Esslinger used to show the results of a ported and polished stock head over an actual stock head it makes plenty more power.